Pianist Dina Ugorskaja (1973-2019)

[North Star]

https://slippedisc.com/2019/09/tragic-death-of-eminent-pianist-46/


Google translation from German

PIANIST DINA UGORSKAJA DIED
THE TIMELESSNESS MADE HORIZONTAL
18.09.2019 by Sylvia Schreiber
 13
When she came to the BR CLASSIK studio last November for a talk, the delicate Dina Ugorskaya looked even more fragile than usual, as thin as the trunk of a young birch, and yet she seemed so strong, so firmly rooted,
so strong-willed. And willing to live - to survive. As her record company announced today, Dina Ugorskaja has now died of her cancer.


Source: © Felix Broede

She performed with Beethoven sonatas in Munich in December 2018. And she had all her strength, her wisdom,
her foresight and the closeness to death, which she has been constantly experiencing for some years now, are part of her playing. It seemed as if with every note she wanted to show her desire for sound and life. A touched audience, an audience shocked by this honesty left her behind that night.

ACCORDING POWER AND INFINITY
Somehow, everyone probably sensed that it was Dina Ugorskaja's last appearance in this room. But nobody could and did not want to pronounce it, because the chordal force of the Beethoven sonatas seemed to tell completely different stories. How Dina Ugorskaja takes every note so seriously, every phrasing so thought through and worked through,
so comprehensible designed, testify now only their recordings. It takes its time, it costs the infinity between each note, without coming tough and sticky like resin.

YouTube Preview - no data is being loaded from YouTube.

Dina Ugorskaja - Beethoven, opus 111, part 1
I want YouTube
Activate content and agree to upload data from YouTube. My privacy settings

Dina Ugorskaja was born in August 1973 in the Soviet Union, in Leningrad. The father: Anatol Ugorski, pianist. The mother: Maja Elik, musicologist, singer, painter. Without music, without art, without discussion,
Without humor nothing goes in her parents' house. With her father, Dina is fooling around at the piano from the moment she's just sitting.

THE FIRST CONCERTS
The first concerts as adolescents make her want more and more, as well as composing. Then comes the year 1990,
because of anti-Semitic hostility leaves the family Ugorski Leningrad and goes to Berlin. The new beginning of father Anatol - from the refugee existence in the home on the concert podiums - drives the writer Irene Dische ahead. And Dina Ugorskaja starts parallel her own career as a pianist, studied in Detmold, teaches in Detmold,
comes to Munich.

YOU GO THE COMPLICATED WAY
She is a coveted chamber music partner and gives solo recitals, she records records - Bach and Beethoven are her favorites. Over and over again she analyzes the late sonatas and the well-tempered piano. She walks the complicated path: first understand, penetrate,
before she devotes herself to the emotional spectrum of a work. Haste is not their main feature. She makes prudent, considered, reflected career. She is always concerned with looking at the music with the utmost precision, as if each note were a three-dimensional sculpture that shimmers again and again in a different light, depending on the lighting conditions.

I believe,
we would do wrong to the music if we do it as fast as it often does these days.
Dina Ugorskaya
The fame, the astonished, enthusiastic reviews come comparatively late, as if also the listener needed time to understand what Dina Ugorskaja can make audible: namely a timelessness.
And that makes her unique - because she manages to impress you not by her virtuosity, by obvious enamel or her incredible variance at the touch of buttery soft to brutal like a tank, but because she put all her skills this timeless magic and thus the Soul really touched.
Broadcast: "Leporello" on 18 September 2019 from 16:05 on BR-KLASSIK

[Todd]

Very sad news.  A unique voice gone too soon.

[Mandryka]

I don't know that I've ever heard her, I wonder what would be a good thing for me to check out.

[Verena]

I don't know that I've ever heard her, I wonder what would be a good thing for me to check out.

No one answered so far. I am deeply impressed by her last recording, which has just been released. She plays Schubert D960, the D946 and Moments Musicaux. In a touching tribute Sylvia Schreiber wrote that her playing makes  "timelessness hearable" (a phrase which to me sounds less odd in German):
https://www.br-klassik.de/aktuell/news-kritik/pianistin-dina-ugorskaja-gestorben-nachruf-100.html
I think Ugorskaja's interpretations of Schubert are incomparable. I've listened to countless recordings of D960, but this is still special to me. Same with D946, I thought I'd never hear an interpretation of D946 that is on par with the live one by Sokolov which I heard in concert some years ago (not the one that has been released).  But Ugorskaja's is equally touching. What a loss.
Anyone else having thoughts on this recording?
I am slowly learning to appreciate her Bach WTC, which received outstanding reviews. Initially, I wasn't very impressed by her interpretations, eg because the tempi seemed to slow to me in many cases.

Afterthought: Just saw that a translated version of that tribute has been provided in the first post in this thread.

[Mandryka]

I finally got round to listening to the D946/i. It's exceptional I agree, dark and dramatic, inward drama, the transitions from one section to the next seem very natural despite the contrasts. The way she handles Schubert's counterpoint makes me think that her Bach may well be interesting too!

[Mirror Image]

I never have heard of her, but it's a shame to read this as she died at such a young age.

[Moonfish]

These posts made me pick up a copy of her WTC and it is excellent.

[asin] B01KIUUL3W[/asin]

[San Antone]

Our own Jens Larsen wrote a very good obit:  https://ionarts.blogspot.com/2019/09/dina-ugorskaja-farewell.html

Sadly I was not aware of this great talent until hearing of her death.  I've been listening to her WTC recordings but will soon move over to her performances of the late Beethoven sonatas.

Seems her death took her as she was gaining traction on the world stage.

[Mandryka]

No one answered so far. I am deeply impressed by her last recording, which has just been released. She plays Schubert D960, the D946 and Moments Musicaux. In a touching tribute Sylvia Schreiber wrote that her playing makes  "timelessness hearable" (a phrase which to me sounds less odd in German):
https://www.br-klassik.de/aktuell/news-kritik/pianistin-dina-ugorskaja-gestorben-nachruf-100.html
I think Ugorskaja's interpretations of Schubert are incomparable. I've listened to countless recordings of D960, but this is still special to me. Same with D946, I thought I'd never hear an interpretation of D946 that is on par with the live one by Sokolov which I heard in concert some years ago (not the one that has been released).  But Ugorskaja's is equally touching. What a loss.
Anyone else having thoughts on this recording?
I am slowly learning to appreciate her Bach WTC, which received outstanding reviews. Initially, I wasn't very impressed by her interpretations, eg because the tempi seemed to slow to me in many cases.

Afterthought: Just saw that a translated version of that tribute has been provided in the first post in this thread.

This Schubert recording is very new. Amazon UK list it as not yet released, it seems to be available in Germany, Spotify have it - that's what I was listening to this morning, but with Spotify sound. In the end  I downloaded it from Qobuz.

It is very well recorded, astonishingly well recorded.

The D946 and Moments musicaux are clearly a major achievement, imaginative and bold, "romantic", I haven't heard the sonata yet, it looks like I'm agreeing with Verena here, it's a fabulous thing to have, this recording.

Modern piano recording of the year.

[Verena]

This Schubert recording is very new. Amazon UK list it as not yet released, it seems to be available in Germany, Spotify have it - that's what I was listening to this morning, but with Spotify sound. In the end  I downloaded it from Qobuz.

It is very well recorded, astonishingly well recorded.

The D946 and Moments musicaux are clearly a major achievement, imaginative and bold, "romantic", I haven't heard the sonata yet, it looks like I'm agreeing with Verena here, it's a fabulous thing to have, this recording.

Modern piano recording of the year.

Glad you like the recording. I've listened to it several times and I'm still very impressed. And I agree with your other post that her WTC is interesting as well. I'm appreciating it more and more. I guess her Beethoven is also great. But I'm rarely in a Beethoven sonatas mood these days.